Cheese Museum Officially Opens. So There!

By JEFFREY SCHMALZ

Published: May 21, 1988

ROME, N.Y., May 20—
The Museum of Cheese - which to some symbolizes much that is bad in government and to others much that is good - opened here Thursday night after more than two years of upstate-downstate bickering and the spending of $175,000 in state money.

But even as the ribbon was being cut, the debate over the museum, which reached all the way to Governor Cuomo and the leaders of the State Legislature, continued. Was this the best use the state could find for $175,000? Has the allocation of money to individual legislators for special projects in their districts got out of control? The City of Rome, about 40 miles east of Syracuse, turned out with pride Thursday night - the Mayor, the City Council, business leaders, the newspaper publisher - for a ceremony in the rain that was not so much the opening of the museum as an attempt to prove it was worthwhile. After two years of attacks from around the state - The (New York) Daily News's editorial called the museum ''something of a joke'' - Rome was fighting back.

''Maybe some of the people downstate don't like cheese,'' Mayor Carl Eilenberg said. ''But God likes cheese. He made it rain and that makes the grass grow and that gives the cows more to eat and that means more milk and that means more cheese. As long as God is on our side, we're satisfied.'' George B. Waters, the publisher of The Daily Sentinel here, said, ''We never pay any attention to anyone below Poughkeepsie.'' But then he gave himself away by adding, ''I'm always angered when people in New York City refer to Poughkeepsie as upstate. Where does that leave the rest of us?''

The star of the evening, trailed by televison cameras and a pack of reporters, was the local State Senator, Nancy Larraine Hoffmann, a Democrat, who obtained the money for the museum in installments over three years. Each member of the Legislature is allocated money every year by the leadership to spend on special projects -known as member items - in his or her home district. For the most part, the money, which exceeds $1 million a year for some lawmakers, is not subject to the normal budget review.

The cheese museum gained attention in part because the idea of it had a ring of frivolity to it but also because it was begun just as member items were coming under increasing criticism. Some citizen advocacy groups questioned whether the money for member items - some of which goes to Little League teams and marching bands -was being well spent. And they questioned whether the amount spent on the items was getting out of control. (The current budget contains about $126 million in member items, up from $80 million two years ago.) Steps Toward More Control The Cheese Museum was part of the reason Governor Cuomo and others took steps to bring member items under greater control, requiring lawmakers to provide more justification for an expenditure. But most legislators say that, in the end, little has changed from two years ago. Neither the Governor nor any of the legislative leaders showed up at Thursday night's opening.

Senator Hoffmann contended Thursday night that the museum was not a frivolous item. It would help improve tourism, she said, as the anchor to a recreated 19th-century village along the Erie Canal. And she argued that it was good public relations for the dairy industry, the second-largest in Oneida County.

Even some of the most skeptical of downstaters seemed impressed with the museum, which cost a total of $425,000. The money came from the city, the county and foundations, in addition to the $175,000 from the state. The museum is in a former 19th-century cheese factory that resembles a white barn. Its first floor will be used for the actual making of cheese. The second floor contains exhibits - a mix of photographs and actual cheese-making apparatus - showing the history of cheese-making in the Rome area and the state. Turn-of-the-Century Display

One exhibit, for example, displays a counter from a turn-of-the-century tavern and tells visitors that in 1895, when the state banned free lunches in taverns, cheese makers were in a dither. It seems the free lunches accounted for the consumption of 15 million pounds of cheese, one-sixth of the state's entire yearly production.

Despite the generally favorable reception the museum received, some critics were not moved.

''Is the Cheese Museum more important than, let's say, finding money to take asbestos out of the schools?'' asked Paul H. Elisha, the executive director of New York State Common Cause, a public interest group. ''Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But the point is, all this should be debated in public. There shouldn't be this hidden budget, these pet projects of legislators that are beyond scrutiny. I'm more disappointed than ever.''

Photos of state Senators Nancy Larraine Hoffmann and James H. Donovan as they view display at Museum of Cheese in Rome, N.Y. (pg. 33); the Museum of Cheese (NYT/David Jennings) (pg. 34)